According to Statista, 511,000 teachers left the profession in June 2023. These numbers are exponentially higher than the eight percent who left the field in the 2021-22 school year after the COVID-19 pandemic. While there are a slew of reasons teachers are leaving the field in droves, one resounding constant is that teachers don’t feel […]
teacher retention
Posted inOpinion
Want to Keep Special Education Teachers? Try Mentorship
“[O]ne of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone.” -bell hooks Isolation island seems to be the name of the game when you enter into the special education profession. It’s often a sink or swim mentality which results in teacher retention […]
Posted inOpinion
Stay in the Classroom to Defend Democracy
Have you signed up for The Educator’s Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism! Education and Election-Year Politics Recent conservative bills in Florida, Texas, and across the country seek to control the language and books teachers use. For example, Florida HB 1557, known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its opponents, restricts what educators […]
Posted inConfessions of a Teacher
Opinion: Prepare for the Mass Teacher Exodus in Georgia and Around the Country
What a year it has been. Last week made one full year since schools across the country moved to remote learning. As of a month ago, there were half a million lives lost in the nation due to COVID-19. There are many countless Facebook arguments about whether students should be in school. Parents are making […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Black Teacher Retention Matters
It is that time of year. Letters of intent are being secured and contracts for the upcoming school year are being handed out. Administrators are considering personnel decisions and teachers are pondering whether or not they should return for the next school year. In the spirit of celebrating Black History Month, I want us to […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
I Am Not Your Hero: Surviving the Educator’s Savior Complex
I am not Michelle Pfeiffer. I don’t wear leather jackets, and I’m not that thin. I am not Hillary Swank. I do have two jobs, but I don’t wear pearls to school. I am not Morgan Freeman. I’m not patrolling my hallways with a baseball bat and locking the doors to keep out the “bad […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Whole Teacher Movement… We Need It Now…
It’s November and right now every teacher I know is in a “funk” where we know Thanksgiving is upon us and very shortly after Winter Break will be peeking its head around the corner. These past four months have been difficult, to say the least. We’ve dealt with: we’ve dealt with the effects of a […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, Instructional Strategies, Middle School, Uncategorized
Teachers in the United States Are NOT the Problem
For more years than I like to think about teachers in the United States have become the issue in determining why U.S. students do not perform as well as their international counterparts. The reason that there has been little success in turning our public schools around is that teachers are not the problem and until […]